Rachel and Eric on mon 30 nov 98
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The Gift of Giving
This recent Oaxacan Day of the Dead weekend the family was invited to spend
the weekend up in the Sierra Mixe with Do=F1a Josefina. She is a fine =
hostess
and a trip to the mountains sounded refreshing, so we loaded the van and
climbed up into the clouds.
The Sierra Mixe is home to the old Mixe or Ayu'uk (as they call themselves)
nation. Among the mountain villages there are several filled with fine
potters. Thus my familiarity with the area and Do=F1a Josefina. She is a =
Mixe
women who buys pottery from the potters who are spread throughout the
mountains, I then buy pottery from her and so it goes.
During our visit this Day of the Dead we decided to visit a family of
potters who lived in a village far below the town Josefina lives in as I
wanted to see and photograph their potting. Just this year a road was opened
to the small village. Josefina prepared a basket full of food gifts=3B
tamales, special bread, bottled sodas, fire water and cider, to give to the
potters. Custom here during Day of the Dead is to prepare lots of tasty food
and invite everyone conceivable to eat. It is a time when it is best to
avoid walking along the street lest you be invited to eat tamales and drink
fire water at a dozen homes before you get to the corner.
The road down to the village pitches off the edge of the mountain and
wheels its way down to the valley bottom. There it crosses the river and
wanders in and out of small canyons until getting to the village.
Unfortunantly somewhere in the wheeling section a flow of surface runoff had
turned the road into an impassable bog. We hadn't planned for this.
Thought we'd drive in, visit some and drive out. Now to get there we'd have
to walk. Suddenly Josefina's basket of food gifts looked very big. Even
bigger looked my two year old, big boned daughter. Her carrying pack had
stayed home. Josefina said it was about an hour by foot from here. I
groaned, but she was undauntable. So I pulled the hand brake, we put rocks
in front of the tires and set out. Me with my brick girl on my hip, Josefina
with a basket bearing gifts and my wife with the backpack that carries
daughter accessories (diapers, extra clothes, stuffed animal, picture book)
and some road food.
Josefina was right, we made it in about an hour. As of yet my hip didn't
know how sore it was. The potters we were going to see lived on a hill slope
under a canopy of pine trees. The pine needle thatched roofs of their little
houses just peaked above the tassels of tall corn growing on all sides.
Coming through the corn we found the houses, one a little log cabin, the
other an adobe room. The potters, an ancient mother and her daughter, were
waiting for us, both dressed in the traditional white top with a long blue
dress. Their faces creased wonderfully around the mouth and eyes when they
smiled. As they spoke not a word of Spanish Josefina did the translating. In
any case there was scarce little conversation as they were extremely shy, or
just quite. But they sat down and made a pot for me to see and didn't mind
at all me poking around with my silly camera. (See pictures in an upcoming
issue of CM should they and the article make the cut).
They made the pots and I took many wonderful pictures (in the setting I
could not go wrong). Josefina gave them the gifts from her basket and they
invited us to eat tamales which we politely did (not more than an hour and a
half previous we had smaked through an eating marathon of turkey soup,
tamales and hard cider up at Josefina's). Then, well filled, we got up to
bid translated farewells.Overcome by the sweet goodness of these potters and
perhaps slightly food intoxicated, we opened our backpack and gave them
everything in it that they might enjoy: juicy oranges we'd got in the city
that morning, rolls of sweet bread and a package of Ritz crackers. It is
also possible that lightening the load for the return trek was a
motivation. Anyway, in this happy mood of giving and enlightenment we
prepared to leave. But they motioned us to wait just a little moment and ran
off.
Now, I have lived and traveled among the potters of Mexico long enough to
know that one doesn't give gifts for the purpous of lightening ones load.
Gifts should be given for the pure pleasure of giving, and besides, such a
tactic never works for load lightening. Indeed the result is often the
opposite. So I'm not sure what I was thinking in that flurry of pouch
zippering. I can only imagine that my motives were selfless and holy, not at
all influenced by the length of the hike out. For had I really been thinking
of our own needs and comfort I would have held onto those oranges, rolls and
crackers.
The way it works in these parts is that if you give a gift you get a gift.
Or two. These sweet women reappeared with smiling wrinkles. They warmly
handed us a bag full of fat tamales, a twenty finger bunch of bananas just
cut from the yard tree, a healthy pumpkin from the field and a special pot.
Were they concerned that this would unduly burden us on our return journey?
I don't think the thought crossed their mind. Every Sunday since they could
remember they've been making the same trek, without the advantage of driving
half way, to the town we'd come from. They'd carry a weeks worth of pottery
up the canyon on tump lines to sell at market and then buy a weeks worth of
supplies and march back home. What's a few tamales, bananas and a little =
squash?
Of course we accepted the gifts and were thankful of their kindness, truly.
Though had we not been so very full we'd have done our best to eat those
tamales and bananas on our hike out and cook the squash in the pot and eat
it too.
Eric
Rachel Werling
and/or
Eric Mindling
Manos de Oaxaca
AP 1452
Oaxaca, Oax.
CP 68000
M E X I C O
http://www.foothill.net/=7Emindling
fax 011 52 (952) 1-4186
email: rayeric=40antequera.com
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